Households’ financial assets contracted due to holding
losses in 2011

Households’ financial assets stood at EUR
218 billion at the end of 2011. Their financial assets decreased by
around EUR 7 billion during 2011. The decrease was due to holding
losses caused by fallen value of investments and amounted to nearly
EUR 13 billion. Net investments, in turn, boosted households’
financial assets by EUR 5 billion. These data derive from
Statistics Finland’s Financial Accounts statistics

Financial assets of households 1998-2011, EUR
billion

.

Popularity of deposits continued

Households invested the largest amount of their assets in
deposits. EUR 80 billion, or 37 per cent, of the EUR 218 billion of
households’ financial assets were deposits. In last year,
too, the vast majority of households’ net investments were
deposits. Households’ net investments in quoted shares also
remained positive, but they withdrew their assets from mutual
funds. Besides deposits, at the end of the year households had EUR
46 billion invested in unquoted shares and equity, EUR 42 billion
in insurance technical reserves, EUR 21 billion in quoted shares
and EUR 12 billion in mutual fund shares.

Indebtedness rate went up

At the end of 2011, households’ loan debts amounted to EUR
117 billion. Loan debts increased by EUR 6 billion from the
previous year. Indebtedness rate, i.e. proportion of loans relative
to disposable income, rose by 2.4 percentage points to 115.6 per
cent. In consequence of the contraction of their financial assets
and the growth of their debts, households’ financial position
weakened. During the year, households’ net financial assets,
i.e. difference between their financial assets and liabilities
diminished by some EUR 14 billion, corresponding to a contraction
of 13 per cent.